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Saturday, April 5, 2014

Chelsea cruised to a comfortable 3-0 win over Stoke City with goals from Mohamed Salah, Frank Lampard and Willian. The sleepy atmosphere inside Stamford Bridge reflected a contest in which Stoke offered no real threat despite Jose Mourinho's side being far from at their best.

As expected, Stoke defended with deep, compact banks of four. At times this season Chelsea have struggled when they've been forced to be proactive against sides looking to defend deep (although more so away from home than at the Bridge). Their defeats this season have come against Stoke, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Everton and Newcastle. In each of those defeats they had more possession than their opponent, averaging over 60% possession per game. They were scoreless in 4 of those 5 defeats. Contrast that with their two massive wins over Manchester City where they were able to play the more reactive style they're comfortable with sitting deep and breaking quickly on the counter. In those two contests they averaged just 40% possession.

Mourinho has placed much of the blame for Chelsea's struggles to score against deep defending sides on his strikers, suggesting that in those contests when space in the final third is tight you need a striker that can get into good positions in the box and poach goals. With Samuel Eto'o still sidelined with a hamstring injury Mourinho was forced to go with Fernando Torres up front in Chelsea's favored 4-2-3-1 formation. The Spaniard's performance did little to ease Mourinho's concerns about his striking options.

Despite his goal scoring troubles, I'm usually impressed with Torres's work rate, movement and link up play. While those attributes certainly are no substitute for goals from a center forward, they do bring something meaningful to the side. Today however, Torres was unusually lethargic. Perhaps some of this had to do with Mourinho's tactical instruction. Whereas Torres often drifts into the channels to offer a passing option forward, he stayed central today on the shoulders of the Stoke center backs. The reasoning may have been to leave that space between the Stoke defensive and midfield lines for the three attacking midfielders to move into. Whatever the case, he'll have been disappointed to have blown an opportunity to impress his manager after Mourinho opted to forgo playing a striker altogether in Chelsea's 3-1 Champions League defeat at PSG Wednesday.

The star performers for the Blues, as has so often been the case this season, were the attacking midfielders. Salah, Schurrle and Willian (and Hazard after his second half introduction) were brilliant and Chelsea's success stemmed from their defensive pressing. They worked tirelessly to win the ball back high up the pitch in Stoke's defensive half which led to dangerous Chelsea counters. The three combined for 8 tackles and 6 interceptions- 6 of the tackles and 4 of the interceptions occurred in Stoke's defensive half.

Willian's pressing in the middle of the pitch in particular was highly impressive. In the first 5 minutes of the contest he won two tackles high up the pitch to spring dangerous Chelsea counters. He completed 4 tackles and an interception on the afternoon. He's a player capable of putting in a tremendous amount of work on the defensive side of the ball and then sprinting in behind the opposition midfield on the counter as we saw for his expertly taken curling second half strike. Andre Schurrle provided 4 interceptions. The demands Mourinho puts on his attacking midfielders to put in a defensive shift is well known and he'll have few complaints about the performance of Willian, Schurrle and Salah today.

Chelsea's midfield pressing aside this wasn't an especially interesting game tactically. Stoke striker Peter Crouch doesn't offer much of a threat running in behind the defense so Chelsea held a fairly high defensive line, keeping him away from the penalty box where he is a real threat with his height. Their pressure in midfield didn't allow Stoke the time to find an out ball when they won possession deep in their own area. As a result Chelsea won possession back in midfield and then patiently retained possession, looking for gaps in Stoke's crowded defense.